As I just said on Allo Ciné French website a few minutes ago, when you choose to watch a war movie, you also have to choose between realism and spectacular pop corn entertainment. Both don't fit together. Because realism - reality connection - may be more boring, more atrocious and more crazy and unbelievable than the usual large audiences movies schemes, with the good guys vs the bad guys, the love story and the "they remained happy ever after " crap. Here in this film, you have nothing of this. The soldiers who fight in Afghanistan are not TRANSFORMERS or RAMBO characters every day. Please, watch this film as a documentary like movie, so close to reality that it will deceive many silly viewers who expected a Michael Bay like flick with one hundred million dollars budget. The main problem with film critics, is that the people confound objectivity with subjectivity. Because if a movie doesn't square with the idea they had of this feature before seeing it, if that doesn't fit, they will say the film is a crap. And this jeopardizes the idea that the film may have on large potential audiences who read those prick critics as if it was the Bible. So, yes, that's a very good movie, so far it's the first picture from the director, an ex soldier himself, with a tiny budget and unknown actors.

waste of £5 that I spent shopping, I spent 6 years as a tracker in SA and I've seen a better plot and action in a children's nappy, toy story has more convincing plot lines, even the basic maneuvers of this group would be wrong, terrible portrayal of the English army but on the plus side, the musical score was very good,maybe next time the crew go spend some time with a platoon, though, the scenery was excellent, i suppose it just made the English army disorganized and under supplied, the latter being true but give these boys a chance, being in a country they shouldn't be in, don't make them out to be like the characters in this movie!

Tom Petch delivers a well-paced no frills look at the realities of the early days of the British Army's recent involvement in Afghanistan. To anyone with any knowledge of this conflict, or of some of the less than brilliant equipment British soldiers generally have to put up with, it offers few surprises, but that is not to say that it isn't worth a look.It works well thanks to some great performances from the cast, combined with a sterling attempt at showing battles and the nuances of the chain of command in a small unit, wrapped up in a realistic production, rather than in an overtly CGI-laden Hollywood style. There is some CGI and matting of course, since when limited to a budget of about a million quid, and filming on location overseas, one cannot afford to have AH-64s, F-16s, A-10 and CH-47s on call. But even though there are some visual effects, they are well done and thanks to the almost documentary-like cinematography of many action sequences, such effects composite shots slot in convincingly enough to not detract from the narrative at all, in fact most people probably won't even realise they are CGI shots, which is the essence of what good CGI should be of course.Despite the storyline being not especially revelatory (i.e. the familiar tropes are all in evidence here: war is bad, war is often pointless and futile, officers are posh, the ranks are working class, the equipment sucks, the conditions are tough, the enemy is elusive, etc) the film does manage a couple of things which are often not done well in other war movies, in conveying the loneliness of command, as well as the 'them and us' feeling often prevalent among the ranks and how a code of conduct beyond mere salutes develops when away from HQ. This alone is compelling enough to keep you watching and is indicative of the director's ability to convey a subject he knows well to his cast, in that he was actually a British Army officer who experienced this first hand.Being that Tom Petch is both the writer and director of the film, this is a very good effort, all the more so when we take note of the fact that he has previously only directed one short film and had a couple of jobs as a technical military adviser on one or two other movies.So, no real surprises in the storyline, especially given the opening narrative which telegraphs part of the tale to us, but The Patrol is certainly worth a look for its convincing portrayal of combat for an isolated small unit in a largely pointless war, as it does this better than a lot of other films which have tried on a much larger budget.

My boyfriend persuaded me to go along and see this and I'm very pleased we did. It's a beautifully shot piece of independent cinema with a thought provoking storyline brought to life very well by the cast. It's the first film I have seen about UK soldiers on the frontline in Afghanistan which gave it a very unique angle. While clearly not having the budget of the Hurt Locker i can see why parallels have been drawn as it draws you into the emotions, stress and pressure of being in a war zone. I also loved that it doesn't have an agenda (maybe unlike the previous reviewer?!). Would definitely recommend to anyone who enjoys independent cinema and who is interested in a soldier's view of the conflict. Very enjoyable.